Sunday, December 7, 2008

Break your Heart

Two posts in one day....wow...we are on a roll.

Carson had a really hard day at school on Friday. I was surprised to hear it since I can usually tell in the morning what kind of day he might have. The morning was okay but he got a red face and when I went to get him off of the bus and he saw me, he burst into tears.

He was crying getting off the bus and saying good bye to his friends. Once inside, I sat down with him and asked him why he was so upset. A few months ago, he would not have been able to tell me but now, he is able to express himself better. He looked at me and in tears said - nobody want to play with me - friends at school not nice. He was such a mess I had to go lay down with him in our bed to help him decompress. It broke my heart. I told him that he is home now and that we all love him and want to play with him. He was safe and we would have a nice afternoon.

I looked up the notes from his teacher and learned that Carson was tantruming and throwing toys. The gist of the story is - the teacher probably told him that friends don't like to play with you when you are tanturming and throwing toys. She also probably told him that he was not being very nice.

Once he was on his way home, he was feeling horrible and that is why we had all the crying. It might be hard to hear the teacher talk like that but to a child that is autistic and socially impaired - he needs to know that his behavior is not acceptable and that people don't like to be around that.

I was repeating the story to my mom that night and when I told her I said the words - he broke my heart. I know he can be alot to handle but he is my child and whenever he is upset, it breaks my heart.

Yesterday after his haircut we stopped to get a Slurpee as a treat. When we got home, out of the blue he just started crying and yelling at me - I broke your heart. I broke your heart. I broke it!

I did not realize that he had overheard my conversation and took it literally that he broke my heart. How do you explain to him that it was a figure of speech? This is a big rule in the autism world. Don't use slang or figures of speech. I could kick myself. It had taken him almost 24 hours to process what I said and it hurt him so badly to think he broke my heart.

This is just one example of how we can go from fine - to - totally not fine in a matter of hours. These crying fits are so hard. It is so hard for me to understand and also for him to understand too. His world is not very rational. He has extreme responses to things I think are no big deal and totally inappropriate responses to things that I think are. We are working on it. One day at a time.

The positive in all this is that there was some real communication going on. It might not have been the way I wanted but he let me know about his day and understood that it had an affect on me.

Gosh, this crazy world. One more lesson for me to learn.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It breaks my heart to hear this story. It hurts but I also see how far he has come - last year he never would have thought about what you said. Love that boy....Nonna

Anonymous said...

Happy and sad in the same post! It kills me! Carson is such a good kid and I know they are doing their job, but I almost cried just hearing about this!! You tell him Becky will come over and play anytime he wants!! Love you guys!

Jay and Emily said...

Thank you Becky. I know you "get" it. I will tell him. I miss you guys and can't wait to see you all on the 19th. I hope Logan will come to me. I know he is a mama's boy. I could eat him up!